Using Brand Name in Page titles

[mlentner]

Is it a good practice to append our brand name at the end of every page title?  We have a very strong brand name but it is also long.  Right now what we are doing is saying:

Product Name | Long brand name here

Product Category | Long brand name here

Is this the right way to do it or should we just be going with ONLY the product and category names in our page titles? Right now we often exceed the 70 character recommendation limit.

[Catalyste]

In my Opinion your Brand Name should not be in your Titles. At least not on all pages. It should be in Contact pages, in pages and articles texts but it titles not that much. The reason I'm saying this is that there is 2 possible options :

1- Your Brand is not so well known so why trying to rank for your Brand when you could target a more efficient Target in term of relevant traffic generation.

2-Your Brand is well known, so that it is probably already in your Domain name and the texts everywhere everywhere on your sites, in anchor text of incoming links. You probably had a website running for this brand for a while so that Search Engine knows that your web property is the one of your brand. You probably also have a lot of links pointing to your homepage with your Brand for Anchor Text. Search Engine will then know.

So instead of focusing on your Brand, I think it's more clever to focused on bringing visitors and customer by using Keyword related to your products and services and have a larger base of customers to get awareness of the brand and then promote and recommend your Brand !

[rball1]

I thought about this after lunch and while I still stand behind my original post I think you can get away with leaving off your brand name if your products have a brand of their own.

Search for "Chuck Taylor All Stars". That's a brand in and of itself so Converse didn't add their name to that title tag.

Whereas if we're talking about a general product I'd say absolutely add the brand name like with "Pencil Sharpeners | Office Max".

[RyanPurkey]

In the case of Gap, not only is their brand name short, but it is also the brand of their clothes.  People are going to be looking for Gap Jeans and the like.  If you're in a similar situation where it's your brand name + product that signifies a sale, it'd probably be wise to have the brand in the title tag in that case, but you'll want to consider whether or not it's worth it across your site globally.

In a case like Harbor Freight, their name is some what long, but they use it on their location specific pages because they have stores, they get localized searches, and they are going to pull in visitors, and the usage adds value. On product specific searches it makes fewer appearances.

[AlanBleiweiss]

That could be.  Then again, how do some brands become so well known for their brand identity?  By including it everywhere human eyeballs are.

[AlanBleiweiss]

That's why I initially offered that the brand can be optional - if it's a weak brand, make use of that space in the Title - however rather than assuming a site can be found for Product Name | KickA$$ Price (very unlikely to be a high volume longer phrase), I believe it's better early on to get a couple phrases in each title where each phrase by itself is relevant, and the combination of those phrases (in different various sequences) is much more likely to get that many more people ultimately finding the site.

This is especially true when having quality content on the page - combine all those Title variations and partial variations with a handful of words in the content that results in exponential long tail visits.

Just my experience though.

[EGOL]

I think that a lot of people using THEIR BRAND in the title tag are simply lazy or egotists.

... but it's OK with me. 

[EGOL]

Gap is lucky to have such a short brand name.

In a lot of cases we are talking about egos that are enormous compared to the size of a brand as widely known as Macy's.

For my sites at least I think that the opportunity to grab extra sale through the title tag is more important than trying to communicate a weak brand when I am head-to-head with a Macy's.   I'd rather use my title tag to shout value propositions, elicit clicks and reach for more keywords.

When we are talking my brand vs Macy's I need to get my foot in the door with value and then impress them with service and quality.

[AaronSchinke]

I like the Hybrid approach. Much more dynamic.

[AlanBleiweiss]

Macy's, Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Fortunoff, Gap... All have their Brand in page Titles.

Interestingly, Gap uses the combination of Category | Gap | Sales Hook (a hybrid of my suggestion and EGOL's) on many of their pages.

[mlentner]

To your comment Alan, I am talking about a world-renowned brand.  With that in mind, it sounds like we should keep the brand there at the end in order to maximize clickthrough and brand recognition.

[RyanPurkey]

In most cases I'm a fan of leaving the brand name off of the title tag as EOGL mentions. It's probably in your URL and all over the page that someone is going to see if they click on your search result, so you should do as much as possible to get that click. His examples are great.

Also consider that people searching for your brand already know about your site and if they don't they still have a VERY high likelihood of interacting with your site at some point.  With generic searches you want to do as much as possible to expose your brand to people that are unfamiliar with your brand, the ones that are the farthest from knowing who you are and what you do.  If you track how someone arrives at your site via search, you're very likely to see this progression:

1. Generic search
2. Generic search + brand or domain name
3. Brand name search
4. Purchase

Your brand is important, but having it in your title tag has very little influence over steps 2-4.  Focus on getting those initial visits.

[AlanBleiweiss]

I always recommend to clients that unless they're a world renowned brand, it's important to include the brand name on core information type pages (about, contact, jobs, etc.) as the first part of the page Title, but that it's optional to include on the rest of the site - and if it is included on other pages, it should definitely be at the end of the Title string, after each page's primary topical focus.

As for products and categories, unless you've got a site that's dominating the search results, I always recommend Product Name | Product Category | Optional BrandName

This is vital because you need to build topical relevance for every product - both specific to that product and how that page relates to it's larger category.  Imagine having 30 product pages in one category - that's 31 pages that would have the Category emphasized, yet in proper syntactical order for individual page relevance.

Then, as your site becomes truly strong in search results, you can go with EGOL's method.

Always remember that Google only displays the first 70 characters at most from each Title - so look at how Titles would in Google.  If you do include the brand at the tail, it's okay if it gets cut off in the Google display - they'll still see it, and users will see it in their browser when on your site - as an additional brand-strengthening aspect of your site's design.

[EGOL]

Lots of people are hung-up on using their brand name in titles.    I think that they should consider some of the examples below.... and use their imagination to appeal to the searcher. Let's be honest... brand names make a really sleepy title tag...

Product Name | KickA$$ Price

Product Name | Free Shipping

Product Name | A Phrase that Elicits Clicks

Product Name | Most Popular Uses

Product Name | Immediate Shipping

Product Name | What the Competition is Keeping Secret

Product Name | Buy Now and Get Free Beer

[mosaicpro]

I think if you use   Product Name | product Category    you shouldn't use your brand name as second keyword but your product category.

On pages that you're not putting as much focus on the title ex:        About us | Long Brand Name Here

Remember each page is treated as a unique page.

[rball1]

I'd say stick with what you have. Even if it exceeds 70 characters, like you say it's a recommendation to stay within it, not an absolute.